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Cartoonists such as Sam Fitton played a part in reflecting life in the Lancashire cotton industry, its troubles, tensions and humour - especially so in publications, such as the Cotton Factory Times which was the newspaper of the cotton unions. It was published weekly from 1885 until 1937 and was a popular newspaper throughout textile Lancashire. It cost one penny. Apart from reporting and discussing union and industry news, it included a wide range of other features, including serialised novels, dialect stories and a jokes column. These broadened its appeal so that it was read by other members of a cotton operative's family. It also featured a regular cartoon drawn by a former operative, Sam Fitton. In his cartoons Fitton commented on events and issues concerning the industry and the lives of the operatives. The cartoons often dealt with the problems - fining, driving, steaming - that the workers experienced in the mill. The cartoons include dialect verse. After Fitton's death in 1923 the newspaper published cartoons less frequently.

The image depicted above shows the satirical value of cartoons, coming from Ernest Canney's "Lancashire Betrayed", a series of essays on cotton trade politics that can be read in its entirety on the STW site.

Terry Wyke

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